The Omen
by troubled.writings.x
Summary: This is how they recover. Tripp/Maureen


**Title: **The Omen  
><strong>Rating: <strong>T, implicit sexual situations  
><strong>Ship:<strong> Tripp/Maureen**  
>Summary: <strong>This is how they recover.

**Author's Note:** I don't know. This is a bloody mess. Happy Labour Day!

—

_The love that's tearing you down  
>is the love that will turn you around<em>

_—_

It starts like this:

"I'm pregnant."

And Maureen remembers how.

Her fingers on Tripp's collar, his belt buckle, his lips on her neck, his skin slipping over hers. It all, him and her, just comes into a sharp focus so easily. Maybe too easily, and she can't help but wonder if it's bad that it's so simple. One minute they're yelling at each after a week of mounting tension and the next Tripp is hurling his tumbler to the countertop, the aged scotch spilling to the floor, the glass shards poking Maureen through her dress.

When Tripp enters her, fingers digging into her waist and hoisting her up against the marble, Maureen's moans break into his mouth just as roughly.

"Okay."

It all goes from there.

—

Boys have never really been interested in her, and Maureen supposes it has something to do with her plainness, but she knows, somewhere in her, there has always been something just bursting to come out since her adolescence. There had been something in her worth taking note of, enticing to breach the surface.

Tripp is the first to notice it.

—

Maureen is twenty the first time she sees Tripp.

It's funny because when she sees him, Maureen wonders how she has gone all this time without ever knowing him before.

It's at one of the elite soirées her parents take her to, and despite being meticulously groomed for them her entire life, her nerves start swimming around inside of her the moment she meets him.

The first thing she sees are his eyes. They're bright and warm and swirling with a maturity that Maureen has never known from men her age. She is so painfully aware of the heat spreading over her cheeks and at that moment she wants nothing more than for the ground to open her and swallow her whole.

"I've never seen you before," he grins at her, and she would collapse if he hadn't been holding her hand so firmly, "I'm Tripp."

The words stutter in her throat for a reply, but she smoothes them over with a confident smile as more blood rushes to her face, "It's nice to meet you."

Tripp smiles and her heart stops (just like in those sultry novels Maureen had managed to read only after moving away to college) and she feels a fluttery feeling in her stomach that's unlike anything she has ever experienced before.

When he leaves, her mother nods at her approvingly.

—

What Tripp doesn't understand or realize, or maybe he just buries it away somewhere, is that she had dreams too. Maureen had them, had cherished them like a child does with its favourite toy, until she gave them up to be Tripp's wife, to bolster his political career, and encourage his own dreams of making his family (grandfather) proud.

—

After his affair, after the arguments, and the empty threats of divorce (because really, grandfather would never allow it), they reach a stalemate.

They live.

In the same house, in the same bed, but that's just it, they're _living_; breathing and waiting for the silence to crack open and thaw, waiting for the smell of Serena to wash off of him and trust to regain them both, waiting for something to catalyze their... what? _Love_? Their sense of companionship, at the very least?

There's something inside of her that screams it's too late and that it will never happen, but rest of Maureen, the part of her meeting Tripp for the first time, convinces her that it's plausible. That she fell in love with him once and it makes no sense to have gone through the pain and the tears if it could happen again.

—

Tripp offers to leave once (if she really thinks it's best). It happens after breakfast one Sunday morning as he finishes off the last of his orange juice.

Something flashes across his eyes as he says it, and Maureen pictures him visioning her with another man, in another home, and she almost feels guilty for it when she sees the forlorn expression on Tripp's face. It reminds her of the night Serena was admitted into the hospital, after Nate had knocked Tripp to the sidewalk, helpless and alone.

Maureen doesn't say anything because the look on his face mirrors her own, and truthfully, having gone three weeks without a single fight, Tripp might be the one leaving, but he can't stand to lost her either, not when there is no one really left.

She wonders how long this feeling will last for them both.

They just need a little time, Maureen reasons, time to readjust and figure out how to get back to where they were right before the wedding, when everyone awed at how well they were together. She wants her and Tripp to be right and not a mistake. Doesn't want to live behind a mask for the rest of her life. She wants that fairytale ending she had pictured when she had first seen him, the type of endings her older cousins told her were for losers when she was younger. She wants years and years of laughter and smiles that make everything that had once been wrong distant memories of the past.

—

"I'm sorry," he says as he slips under the covers on the other side of the bed.

There is a lot for him to be sorry about.

Her too, if she'll just let herself admit it to him aloud.

Maureen bites her lip in anticipation, hands tracing the still-too-early nonexistent bump on her stomach. Maybe this is when they will actually start speaking, here, in their cold bed at eleven in the evening when most couples are either sleeping or making love.

There is just so much Maureen wishes she can formulate into phrases. Wishes that whenever she and Tripp get close to the opportunity to talk about themselves, her racing thoughts would freeze for _one damn second_ so she can organize them. She wishes that she could just hear herself think.

"Sure," she whispers tiredly, turning to face the bedroom door.

—

Maureen doesn't think of sex very often. (It's a little hard considering she and Tripp only exchange words when they are needed. Some nights she has already fallen asleep by the time he comes home from work. Other nights it is the other way around.)

But sometimes, like after a run when Tripp bends to retrieve bottled water out of the back of the fridge and the edges of his shirt rises up, Maureen secretly spies his smooth flesh glistening under sweat. And when her hormones kick into overdrive, Maureen can't help but think of the instances when Tripp has to be flustered too, and those thoughts only force her to press her legs together tighter and control the ache between her thighs.

After they meet, Maureen wonders if she'll ever see him again – really see him. There are bound to be times at other social gatherings when she will eye Tripp from across patios, tables, and throngs of people. She wants more than their polite talks, because despite growing to learn more about him, Maureen wants more than that. She wants to step out of a limousine or her driver's car and find him there waiting for her.

Yeah, it's a stretch, but that is what single and romantic girls like her do.

Despite the risk of having Tripp and his friends laugh at her for being totally obvious with her feelings and acting like a twelve-year-old harbouring a middle school crush, Maureen tosses a look over her shoulder and is startled to find his eyes meeting hers, as if he has been looking for her.

It seems too good to be true when Tripp makes his way towards her, smiling and hands in his pockets, making her stomach flutter all over again.

—

She considers leaving in the middle of the night and going someplace far away like Africa or a small village in Eastern Europe. Maureen considers leaving and seeing if Tripp will follow. If one day, she'll look around and see him staring at her, shaken and relieved to have finally found her. She considers leaving just to see what will happen.

She never does.

—

Tripp tastes like candy; his lips like strawberry gum and skin like those saltwater taffies from Maine that she loves so much. He smells like expensive cologne and feels like velvet when his voice vibrates into her chest.

The first time they make love she is twenty-three.

She spends the entire night feeling him with her hands, pushing aside his damp dark blonde hair from his forehead, his muscles shifting under her touch, and growing accustomed to the way her fingers tighten in his with every movement.

Tripp's groans and sighs replay over and over in her head along after they're both quiet.

And then it gets frightening, because men like Tripp, stunning, ambitious, and intelligent, they don't fall for girls like her. They date models and women with wild and spontaneous personalities that make a person forget where they come from.

When has a guy like Tripp ever chosen the average girl? The girl who still goes through her parents' wedding album. The girl, who despite her background and wealth, doesn't really stand out in comparison to her counterparts. The girl who belongs to the world that only reinforces Tripp's silent struggles between with the decisions he wants to choose and the ones he has to make.

She hates herself for doubting him even a little.

—

Whenever she experiences morning sickness, Maureen uses the downstairs bathroom.

—

One humid afternoon Maureen finds herself rearranging the flower ornament in the front foyer. It doesn't take long for the menial task to completely consume her concentration to the point where she doesn't notice Tripp enter through the doorway until she hears his voice behind her.

"Hi."

She grunts in response, turning the vase over and restarting.

She hears his footsteps retreat down the hall and resumes her task; every combination feels wrong and looks worse than the one before it. Maureen considers giving up entirely when she hears Tripp coming back.

He stops a few feet away from her, just standing and she can feel herself sweating under the heat of his gaze despite the air condition on full blast.

"I was thinking," he starts, arms crossing timidly over his chest, "maybe you should go back to school."

Maureen drops the flowers from sheer mortification.

"What?"

"I said, ma—"

"You don't know what you're talking about," she snaps at him, eyes hard and fingernails digging into her palm.

She isn't upset at what he has suggested, it's just the fact that Tripp is the one to deliver the statement, breathing life into an old regret Maureen refuses to think about since their wedding. She considers walking away, maybe going out for a stroll and cooling down but she doesn't, so naturally Maureen is still caught up with him, but still never really letting herself trust Tripp and what is worse is that he knows how she feels.

She had given up school to marry him so maybe this means he's finally deciding what to do. Maybe this means he is seriously contemplating filing for divorce.

—

Tripp purchases enough prenatal vitamins to feed a small army of pregnant mothers. He makes sure she is always fed, doesn't let her do any lifting, and the baby soon becomes the icebreaker to their long silences, the catalyst to their talks regarding other developments in their lives.

Their child, Maureen believes, just might have saved their marriage.

—

In most relationships people develop their own language. Maureen initially picks up the idea from watching a cheesy soap when she's eleven. She watches the character have whole conversations with looks and touches and becomes aware of her and Tripp's own language rather quickly.

She knows that when Tripp wears flannel he is feeling more stressed than usual, and that rapid blinking means _I'm confused, please explain what is happening_.

And these signals only mean more now that they're in this faux stage of their marriage, this rough patch, if you will. Because society loves to gossip and would want nothing more than to find out what it is really like behind closed doors, how they've managed since all that has happened.

(His grandfather could only mitigate so much damage.)

—

Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and listens to Tripp's deep breathing for a while, remembering that his actions would have nearly destroyed her if Maureen hadn't forced that hard shell over herself, if she hadn't had that instant reaction from the most brutal humiliation and betrayal she'd ever felt in her life.

—

They don't seek therapy.

Never.

It's pointless talking to someone about their setbacks when they can't admit them to each other.

—

Sometimes Maureen hopes for a signal she can give Tripp, one that could convey all that she wants to say to him without ever having to say it.

She comes close to it one time.

At Tripp's cousin's birthday, they come out of hiding from the limelight. Maureen is showing just a bit, noticeable to anyone really looking, so she prepares herself by wearing a loose fitted dress to draw away attention from that region.

However it doesn't help. The entire evening she can feel nearly all the women staring at her, and Maureen can feel the onset of a severe migraine approaching just by their incessant whispering. She looks around for a place to escape to and finds Tripp's eyes on her instead, causing a shiver to run down her spine when their gazes meet.

Maureen stands quietly as he moves towards her, and she instinctively reaches for Tripp's hand, squeezing it twice. _Let's get out of here._

_—_

"I hope she turns out to be like you."

Maureen lowers the book from her hands and raises an eyebrow at Tripp leaning against the doorjamb. She had been resting against the headboard of the bed, ankles crossed in front of her, digesting the words from the novel when she spots Tripp at the bedroom door from the corner of her eye. She had chosen to ignore him, but after that declaration, it would certainly prove to be difficult.

"It's too early to determine the sex of the baby. How do you know it's a girl?" she enquires, pushing her legs under the duvet and surveying him closely as he walks over to the dresser and unfastens his watch.

Tripp shrugs, turning back to her, slowly pulling off his loosened tie and unbuttoning his shirt. Maureen darts her gaze away when he peels it back, the sight of him bare-chested causing a stir in her loins.

"I don't know. I've just got a feeling," he replies, standing there shirtless with his hands in his slack pockets.

Maureen coughs awkwardly, eyes glued back to the book as her cheeks redden. She immediately feels like she is twenty and Tripp is looking at her from across a crowded space.

"So, do you really mean it? About her being like me?"

She can picture the grimace on his face, can almost see him recalling everything awful and maddening thing she has done, but when Maureen looks up she only sees Tripp chuckling softly. It's the greatest sound she has heard in a long while, the way it rumbles through the air between them.

"Yeah, yeah I do."

—

When she discovers that she is pregnant the first thought in Maureen's mind is that she can't breathe. The blue line on the pregnancy test watches her from the sink counter and there suddenly isn't enough air in the bathroom so she runs out and collapses on the bed.

Maureen is too astonished to scream or cry because her second thought is that the test is wrong (until she remembers in the incident in the kitchen). Her third is whether or not she should keep it, and her forth is when she should tell Tripp (because she has never been good at keeping secrets from him anyway).

—

Everything changes when Maureen wakes up with a sharp pain in her abdomen. She groans, palms pressed flat to her middle as she takes note that Tripp has already left for work. It takes all her strength to call a cab and go to the hospital, and the entire ride she can't help but feel fear and utter disbelief along with the alarming warmth pooling in her seat.

Maureen doesn't realize that she had passed out until she wakes up and sees Tripp sitting next to her in the hospital room.

"Maureen," he murmurs as his hand moves up to cradle her cheek. His eyes look dreary, but she can see a sliver of relief in them.

She can't help but flinch at his touch because _oh God no_ her baby, _their_ baby. She sniffs, because the look on Tripp's face explains everything, it always does, and it isn't long before she breaks down into sobs, curling into herself on the bed, fists flying to fight Tripp off when he reaches for her.

"_Stop_," she says hoarsely, struggling to catch her breath behind her cries and hot tears, "Tripp, stop it."

He freezes and moves back far enough for her to see that he is crying too and the image slams into her so hard that it only makes Maureen cry harder at the emptiness inside her.

—

For an entire fortnight Maureen cries herself to sleep and dreams of the baby, tiny and pink, with blonde curls and her eyes. Each night she wakes up screaming.

Tripp tries to comfort her; he makes her tea and when he tries to hold Maureen in their bed, she just can't stand to be in his presence so she pushes him away _physically_, since she is already so far ahead with doing it emotionally.

Maureen realizes that she is being unfair; Tripp lost the baby, too, but it hurts to be near him. There's a burning awareness making her stomach lurch because all the progress they made until the miscarriage is now ruined.

She's too scared to consider what this means for their marriage.

—

(It takes all her willpower not to breakdown when she sees the unopened box of saltwater taffies on the kitchen counter.)

—

Maureen cries and cries until she spends all her tears. Tripp is worn out too, she notices, taking in every excruciating sigh, every rub at his tired eyes and hollow face, his body worn from fatigue and stress. He seems to have given up trying to console her, has retreated back behind the solid mass he put up when they first made their arrangement to stay together and move to D.C.

For a while nothing feels and looks like it has changed until Maureen opens the cupboards and finds her prenatal vitamins, at least a dozen of them, all lined up in a neat row.

It starts with a sniff, her fingers trembling as they reach out and tighten around the bottles like a vice. The next minute Maureen is crying hysterically, standing over the toilet in the bathroom and pouring the pills in, flushing the orange pellets after emptying each bottle.

Tripp comes in, home early from a meeting when he finds Maureen sobbing on the ground. He kneels down next to her in less time than it takes to breathe, under eyes dark from lack of sleep, and this time she doesn't pull away when he runs his hand down her arm.

"You're shaking," he whispers, and she doesn't realize it until he presses his firm chest against her side, pushing away the sweaty hair from her neck.

"I did everything right. I did everything _right_, Tripp."

It's a futile attempt at explaining her anxiety. Maybe it isn't even that, but he doesn't push the subject, only clarifies that _he knows_ and _it's not her fault_.

And it feels like an eternity has passed before Tripp finally moves from her side, uncoiling his arms from around her and moving towards the tub to prepare a hot bath. Then he comes back, helps Maureen to her feet and slowly undresses her, his nimble fingers as light as feathers when they brush across her skin.

Maureen stills, quiet but not unnerved at her stark nakedness. Tripp doesn't look anywhere but her face as he eases her into the tub; the water instantly soothes all the aches she didn't know she had.

She stares blankly at the wall across her, at the toiletries on the bathroom counter and the towels on the nearby rack. Tripp rolls up his sleeves and reaches for the sponge.

—

She sleeps for an entire day and wakes up groggy and warm, tucked in her bathrobe and concealed underneath a mountain of blankets. It only takes a moment to recall what has happened, to remember Tripp's calloused and soapy hands on her back, her legs, her stomach and every place in between.

Maureen sighs, burying her face in her hands and shudders at the intimacy before convincing herself to get out of bed.

Tripp is downstairs, eating that disgusting takeout he has gotten used to as a result of his late nights at the office. He sends her a look bordering somewhere between concern and curiosity when she sets the kettle on the stove, rummaging around for a teabag.

He doesn't ask her if she is alright and for that she is grateful.

"Grandfather called. He said he wanted us to come up and visit for Thanksgiving," he informs, voice as smooth as satin, "I told him we had other plans."

"Oh?" Maureen replies, pouring the boiling water into her mug. She is grateful for him declining the invitation, too.

"Yes."

"Alright."

—

In her dreams the baby is always a girl.

—

Once in a while she thinks of Serena. She wonders if Tripp had wooed the blonde with his smile and his charm, the same way he did with her. Maureen ponders the thought of Serena's insides feeling like they could just explode any minute around him.

She wonders if Tripp ever told Serena he loved her, and meant it.

She wonders if he still does.

The idea leaves a bitter taste in her mouth so Maureen never asks him, like all the other things she doesn't inquire about, and tucks it away somewhere in her heart until she draws it forward and mulls it around in her head.

Tonight is different though. Maureen can feel him awake on the other side of the bed, a warm lonely body itching for an ounce of sleep. Tonight she isn't occupied by her mourning or thinking about what could have been and all the other damned things she usually considers at this hour in the night.

Tonight, she asks:

"Do you think about_ her_?"

Tripp answers with a scratchy sound in his voice, enough to convince Maureen that he is being honest, "I haven't for a really long time. No."

And she leaves it at that.

—

Maureen takes a week off from work and goes to visit her parents. The entire car ride she practises what she will say, what lies she will have to conjure up on the spot if the ones she delivers don't withstand her mother's grilling.

In the end she tells the truth.

She starts with admitting her role in the Hudson scandal, then Tripp's affair, their move from New York, and ends with the miscarriage.

Maureen's mother is silent, hesitant to share her thoughts but Maureen isn't surprised at her lack of words because her parents kind of had the ideal marriage, as far as she knows. It is what she had looked up to when she first accepted Tripp's proposal.

Her mother asks her what she will do. Maureen sighs, straightens her skirt and takes a sweeping glance around her childhood home. She doesn't know what she is going to do. Things between her and Tripp... they aren't wholly uneasy, but there _is_ a tension solidified by her uncertainty regarding a lot of things.

That night, her confusion leads Maureen to her father's wine cellar. When she finishes consuming an entire bottle of the finest chardonnay she can find, it's only then that the constant buzzing in her head stops. It is then that her frazzled thoughts are replaced solely by her sense of touch, her body reeling from the warmth of the wine.

She can't help but think of Tripp, his lean frame and his soft voice above her, under her, _everywhere_. His hands caressing her in the bath. Her limbs wrapped around him, lips on his shoulder. She remembers the marble cool against her bum.

Her visions are vivid enough to elicit a sultry noise from her mouth, and before she knows it, Maureen has her cell in her hand, the screen displaying Tripp's office number.

The phone rings, once, twice, and then the answering machine comes on and Maureen is absolutely _floored_ with emotion, not to mention totally hot and bothered.

"Everything I did," she starts, and this is the worst possible time to bring up their history but Maureen does it anyway because she is a wreck and because she misses him (but she won't admit _that_), "I did it to protect you and I would do it all over again if I had to."

Then she hangs up, falling asleep on the large armchair in the drawing room.

—

On the drive back, Maureen replays Tripp's message on her phone over and over again until his voice becomes a mantra refusing to leave her head.

_I know. See you at home._

When the car finally pulls up, he is waiting for her near the foot of the drive way. Maureen swallows the lump in her throat that comes with a strange sense of déjà-vu.

"Welcome home," he greets, eyes shining as he steps closer to her.

"Thank you, I –"

But she doesn't finish because Tripp is suddenly pressing his lips against her forehead and then sidestepping her to get her luggage. Maureen watches silently, nearly rips off her sunglasses to take that much closer of a look at him, forehead tingling as he carries her bags to the front door and slips inside.

—

"I kept the baby so you wouldn't leave me," she nearly screams (the confession surprises them both). She stands up so abruptly that the kitchen chair falls over behind her. "And after the...I told myself if you left me I'd understand, but you're still here! Just tell me what you want from me!"

Tripp's blue eyes are hard as steel, showing a level of barely suppressed rage.

"I don't understand how you could possible not know, as smart as you are. I don't understand how you can be the most infuriating woman to talk to sometimes."

They're fighting.

The really weird thing is Maureen doesn't know who or what started it. Maybe it's the split milk she discovers in the fridge, or the lowered thermostat that Tripp yells is freezing his ass off, but it's not really relevant because in the end they're fighting about what really matters.

"Well then," she huffs, hands at her hips, "If I'm so infuriating then _go_. Don't stay here and do this to be noble. I've had enough of your brooding to last a lifetime."

Because the thing is, she knows Tripp. Knows him better than she knows herself at times. Knows his fears, his aspirations, and his (wavering) moral standards. It won't shock her to find out that he stays only to make up for what he has done. (To her. To them _both_.)

Tripp runs a hand through his hair and looks like he's pondering if he should punch a hole through the wall. "I'm trying to show you all this, I'm trying _so hard_ because you're the most important person to me, but you just don't want to get it."

"How can you—"

"Listen to yourself," he interrupts, and he's only a few feet away but it feels like miles so he has to yell at for her to hear him. "You're so busy trying to make me leave that you can't see all the ways I'm trying to show you I want to stay!"

For a split second Maureen remembers the look on Tripp's face, the one he had given her in front of their lawyers when they shred the divorce papers, the one that had accused her of giving up on him. Of not believing in him. It's forever ingrained in her mind, along with her memory of meeting him for the first time, because it's a game changer. It puts her in a situation where she feels as awful as she hopes Tripp does about his infidelity.

"I..." Maureen's voice dies down before salvaging volume, gears starting up and grinding like clockwork. "I don't want — _I will not_— be made a fool twice."

"I know that you don't trust me, and I _know_ that I haven't given you a sufficient reason to trust me now," and then Tripp's voice and expression shifts completely, both becoming more tender and losing their sharp edges, "But I love you, and if that means working my whole life to regain your trust then I'll do it. You just have to give me the opportunity, Maureen."

When they were dating Tripp had admitted that all he wanted in life was a home of his own, a career as an archaeologist, and a family. Growing up, his parents had fought constantly and the strain his grandfather put on that marriage didn't help ease things at all, so Tripp really just wants a family that he can be in with the least amount of drama as possible.

Maureen takes a deep breath, willing her nerves to settle. They feel like they're on fire underneath her skin and if there's any chance at recovering her composure, at them getting around this fork in the road, she just needs to calm down.

But there's still something.

"How did you _know_?"

She is alluding to the message she left at Tripp's office, and by the look of things, the way Tripp's mouth forms into a thin line in acknowledgement, he understands.

"You talk in your sleep."

"I do _not_ –"

"Yeah, you do," he declares, then immediately puts his hands up in defence, "it's really no bother, honestly."

Maureen pauses and reaches down to lift the fallen chair, perplexed at the idea of how everything she can't say when she is sober manages to come out when she's asleep. It doesn't shock her though, that Tripp actually listens and deciphers what she says; she can't imagine her jumbled thoughts spilling out like a beautiful soliloquy when asleep.

"What else do I say?"

Tripp doesn't hesitate to answer, nor does he even try to hide the smirk on his face, "You quote Letterman, _a lot_."

—

For an entire week Maureen's movements are jerky and erratic, purse slamming (unbeknownst to her) on her work desk, lost in her own thoughts. Sensibility seems to evade her waking moments. If her coworkers notice, they don't say anything.

And to make matters worse, even sleep avoids her, and Maureen ends up tossing and turning all night, regretting her decision to even try getting comfortable in the first place. Sometimes she will look over to Tripp's side of the bed and remember that he's attending to business in New York. Every recurring thought of his absence makes her gut jump back, muddling her senses and making her dizzy.

She can't help but bear in mind the last time Tripp had been at home; that day in the kitchen when everything had been really loud and then gotten quiet, when Maureen had been certain that they would fall apart indefinitely, only to end with a joke poking at how much time she spends watching late night talk shows. And even before all that, Maureen spends her nights looking back now and attempting to interpret all of Tripp's actions she never paid much attention to but has clearly not forgotten.

—

Maureen stands at the end of the foyer, her hands wringing as the front door opens and Tripp steps through the entryway, drops his briefcase and luggage, and brushes the snow off the shoulders of his coat.

"Hey," she calls, stepping towards him, "I'm glad you're finally home."

"Me too," replies Tripp, folding his scarf over the back of the chair by the door. When he turns to look at her fully, he freezes momentarily, eyeing the wine-coloured dress she has chosen to wear for the evening. "You look really nice."

"Thanks."

Maureen runs one hand over her straight hair, then the side of the dress, the way she used to do when she would dress up especially for him. Tripp seems to recognize the gesture, his gaze settling on her face as he approaches her.

"So, how was New York?" she asks when his hands reach out and close around hers. They're a little clammy from the cold, but they warm up almost instantly.

Tripp sighs, his breath moving across her cheek. "It was okay. Tuesday was a bit strange. Had a bunch of onlookers come in to the office and not really say anything. Other than that it was crazy busy."

"And your flight?" Maureen presses, nudging him away from the foyer, loving the way his voice appears to fill up the entire house.

"I actually called in to get an earlier one. They had a flight leaving at three so I booked it. When I got to JFK it was delayed and we ended up taking off right around the same time I would have..."

Tripp's voice trails off as he studies the dining room, taking in all the sights and smells of the food, of the champagne he favours cooling in ice, of the soft glow from the candlelight. A rumble erupts from somewhere within him and she can't stop the knowing smile from shaping her face.

Maureen tilts her head up and squeezes Tripp's hand, just once. "Surprised?"

There's a sparkle in his eye that she hasn't seen since they moved to D.C., a hint of the old Tripp that now makes him look ages older. It's nice. "Yes. I'm starving like you wouldn't _believe_."

This is it, Maureen thinks, and the air around them seems to thicken inexplicably, this is the moment. She's been waiting for it ever since he phoned after landing, but it is the confirmation they have both needed for what seems like decades.

This is their moment of clarity, so severe and _real_, that Maureen has slight difficulty breathing. She imagines this is how every artist feels when they complete their masterpiece, every researcher after discovering a medical breakthrough, of the full weight of their actions just hitting so suddenly it's impossible to miss it.

"I made a vow to you," she gulps, voice catching for a second, "To spend the rest of my life with you, and I can do it now without needing to hear the apologies again."

A tear drips slowly down her cheek until it disappears into the corner of her mouth. Before, Maureen did not have the ability to let Tripp see her cry over everything that happened in New York. Had to gather all her strength to put up an unaffected face instead. But now, seeing him watch her wipe her cheeks, head fixed solely in Tripp's direction drives the whole situation home in a way so entirely different than anything else ever could have.

Because the thing is, Maureen _has_ cried over this, their relationship before, _of course she has_, and now Tripp has seen it. There is pain involved in whatever it is that has taken the two of them to this point; so much of it that it has never truly began to heal until now.

"I missed you so much," Tripp whispers, her hot tears rolling over his fingers when his hands come up to cup her face.

Her heart flutters in a way it hasn't for what feels like seasons. Maureen's reaction is natural, almost instantaneous; her eyes slip shut and her mouth is firm when Tripp's lips lean down and begin to roll over hers.

Tripp _feels_ exactly the same way she remembers, like a living room, worn and comfy and lived in, with books in heaps on the shelves, coffee table with magazines and DVDs stacked on top of it, photos and souvenirs arranged on the mantle in an order that makes sense to her and her only.

Maureen smiles against his lips as she takes it all in; she feels like she's kissing Tripp for the first time.

It's a comforting feeling.

—

They lie on their bed later that night, wide awake despite the inevitable lull of sleep and the lateness of the hour. Not that Maureen really expects to sleep soon, not really, not with Tripp _so close_ and the smell of him invading her every breath. She lies down against his side and Tripp tosses the blanket over her, his shirt crinkling deliciously against the bed sheets, and Maureen can't help but twine her legs through his when her feet get cold, head in the crook of his shoulder.

—

Tripp's kisses are heated, almost frantic, as he pushes her against the mahogany paint, moving Maureen back with his body. This has been a long time in coming—the culmination of secret glances, longing sighs, and three frustrating days of patience and she plans on enjoying every moment of it.

Maureen bites her lip but can't restrain the moan that escapes from the back of her throat when Tripp nips at a particularly sensitive spot on her neck. He cradles the back of her head and while fingering the hem of her blouse, skimming across the skin he finds there with an almost tentative lightness. Blinding heat scorches through her, spreading quickly up Maureen's chest and stretching all the way down to her toes, zig-zagging around before coming to rest heavily in the pit of her stomach.

—

Dawn in D.C. is slow. It climbs over the buildings downtown, sweeps over the Capitol and the Georgetown campus nestled on the side. By the time it creeps past the gauzy curtains, Tripp is already waking up.

Maureen feigns sleep, taking a moment to lay still and rest her eyes for another minute. Midterms have been a little hellish for her first semester back at college. She has been stressed constantly, working hard to regain her once impeccable study habits and willing her thoughts to focus on every minute detail. Still, it doesn't surprise her how simple it had been to close her books for the night and indulge in Tripp instead.

She feels his fingers on her, sliding down her spine; his lips on the base of her neck. Maureen sighs and rolls over and Tripp's there, grinning down at her with that smile that still makes her weak at the knees sometimes. The smile reaches all the way to his eyes and it assures Maureen that things are going to be okay.

Tripp gets up from the bed and she can't help but let her sleepy eyes follow him, reaching to sit up on her elbows to get a better look. Tripp gathers their clothes from the floor and puts them in the hamper because he knows she hates the mess.

"Just give me a minute," Maureen yawns, falling back under the covers, "and I'll help with breakfast."

"Don't worry about it," he replies, pulling on his morning robe and running a hand through his mussed hair, "Just rest. I'll be back soon to wake you up."

Tripp drops a quick kiss on her head, and Maureen is already falling asleep, the smell of him still all over her.


End file.
